Prayers from Hannah / Blog Name

Okay, the girl is a hoot! Here's a snippet from her prayer tonight:

"Thank you God for my sister Sadie, and for my puppy (that) my mommy get me one day"

sounds innocent..but I've never told her she's getting a puppy! In fact, when this topic came up (last month!), I told her she was getting a sister but no promises on the puppy.

So, is it the faith of a child to thank God for what she doesn't yet have...or manipulation to do it in front of mommy's ears? hmmm...

In case you're wondering, it made me laugh but did not "move me". ha! I love dogs. I really do. I hope one day Hannah and Sadie will have one. But there is absolutely no way at all we are getting a sister and a puppy in the same year. And we're sticking with the sister.

In other news, I have not forgotten that I want to rename my blog. Thanks for all the suggestions last month. I'm still a bit undecided. I have a new favorite that came up at work. What do y'all think? "Fried Rice and French Fries"..you know, kind of the whole Chinese - American them? Any more suggestions?

SNOW!!

Well it wasn't as much as I hoped, but was fun just the same. Hannah was delighted! I was delighted watching her! It started out not so great when I woke up and saw no snow..just wet roads from the rain. Hannah came in my room and said "it snowed? we can go make footprints and sled down the hill..whee..and make a snowman?" I had to break it to her that no, probably not. But, the weather came through a while later. It snowed pretty hard for about 2 hours. Not enough for snow angels or sledding (not that we even own a sled or have a hill..but she had it in her mind that she was going to go sledding!) or really even footprints. But, we did get to walk around in it and then met up with some neighbors for a snowball fight. And we did manage to make two little snowmen! I hope you all had a fun Saturday!

First moments in the snow..it actually is snowing fairly steadily even though you can't tell in this picture!!

Hey..some snow fell in my eye!!

Cleaning the snow off the car just for fun

Meet snowman #1!

Snowball fight with one of our neighbors

Plotting and teaming up against the grown-ups

Snowman #2 - and yes, by this point finding enough snow is getting to be a struggle! But we did!

Waiting on the Snow

IT'S GOING TO SNOW!! I know, it doesn't *look* like it or even *feel* like it. Hannah doesn't really even need the coat and mittens she's wearing outside in this pic. BUT...IT'S GOING TO SNOW!! I love to see the snow, but I've lived here way too long to believe the forecasters whenever they say snow. Call me crazy, but this time I believe it. I don't know why and I don't know how much to believe..but I do think we'll see snow on the ground Saturday. Maybe even enough to muster up a small snowman?? Oh, I hope so!! We even went and got some on clearance mittens for Hannah today so her hands wouldn't get wet playing in the snow tomorrow. Yes, I have high hopes! For me, for her, and for my sweet little children in my class at school. I don't know if Hannah ever saw snow in China or not, but if she did she was too young to remember it. And I *know* the little 3 and 4 year olds in my class have not seen it really..unless on vacation somewhere else. Wasn't it like 2000 the last time snow actually accumulated in this area? So, for all the "under 8" crowd out there - I'm hoping and wishing with you! Just for the record, we didn't go totally crazy and go buy bread and milk (although we happen to have plenty of both already). We did however get me some diet dr. pepper and some donuts for both of us. priorities, ya know? ha!

New Pictures!

SADIE - 2 years old!

The amount of connections that happen in this China adoption community never cease to amaze me! You would think I would no longer be suprised as many times as I hear it happens and it's even happened to me. By way of the internet, with Hannah's adoption, I was able to connect with a family in California who was adopting a son from her same orphanage just 2 months ahead of me. They were able to meet Hannah and get updated pictures. When I traveled to get Hannah, I was able to take updated photos of a little girl from there who was then living in North Carolina. Then, I was able to send updated photos of Hannah about a year post-adoption with a local area family who was adopting from her orphanage. We know several families that have adopted from that same orphanage that live around our state. We've even met one of the families in "real life". But, that orphanage was BIG. Really big. And my agency has had several kids from that orphanage on more than one of their special needs list. And their yahoo group (yeah - there's yahoo groups for families who have adopted from specific orphanages) is fairly large and fairly active.

I joined Sadie's orphanage yahoo group to see what I could find out. It's a fairly small group and turns out it's actually for 2 orphanages in the same city with *almost* identical names (one is an "institute" and one is a "center"). The "center" is fairly big and most of the people on the group adopted from there. The "institute" is small and there is not a lot of information. That's where Sadie is. Well, I posted an introduction..and it's yielded big stuff! I heard from a family in NC who adopted from there (though she didn't visit the orphanage). And then I heard from a family from The Netherlands. They adopted their little girl in Dec. 2005 and she thinks she met Sadie. She would have only been 2 months old at the time, so we can't be SURE..but she really thinks it was her. There were only 6 kids at the orphanage at that time. She said she was tiny but very alert. THEN, today I came home to find an e-mail from someone fairly local (in the state) who adopted less than 3 months ago from Sadie's orphanage. She said there were about 10 children there at the time. She met Sadie and she has pictures! Turns out her daughter and Sadie were best friends and she sent me about 8 pictures of the two of them together. She said Sadie was sad and the director said she was sad that her best friend was leaving. poor baby! But how amazing that these little ones will have that connection. These toddler best friends from an orphanage in China will live only a couple hours away from each other!

Look, Sadie's best friend is trying to feed her a cracker! Sweet!!